1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to voting systems and, more particularly, to a ballot processing system that tabulates the voting selections marked on paper ballots.
2. Description of Related Art
A variety of different types of voting equipment are used in the United States and throughout the world. In many jurisdictions, a voter receives a paper ballot on which is printed the various contests to be voted on. The voter votes by darkening or otherwise marking the appropriate mark spaces on the paper ballot. The marked paper ballot may then be dropped in a ballot box, whereby the paper ballots accumulated in the ballot box are transferred to a central election office for tabulation. At the central election office, a central ballot counter is used to scan and tabulate the voting selections marked on paper ballots received from various polling locations. This same central ballot counter is also used to process the ballots in the event of a recount of a particular contest in the election.
Typically, the central ballot counter includes an input area for receiving a stack of, ballots to be processed, and an output area with a diverter for directing each processed ballot into one of several output bins. For example, one output bin may contain ballots that were properly processed by the central ballot counter, while other output bins may contain ballots that include a voting irregularity associated with a contest on the ballot (e.g., a write-in vote, an undervote, an overvote or a blank ballot) and/or ballots associated with a processing error (e.g., a read error, an invalid ballot identification code, or a double feed error). A canvass team may then review the ballots containing a voting irregularity and/or ballots associated with a processing error and take the appropriate action required by the jurisdiction. This process is very time-consuming in that the canvass team must review each individual ballot and determine the reason that the ballot was sorted into a particular output bin.